Film Analysis

Kidulthood

Symbolic codes:

A darker colour scheme is used, particularly on the streets. This mirrors the weather of England, as well as setting the tone of the film and giving hints towards the genre. The contrast between dark and light that is used can connote the contrast between the characters' young age and the adult life the live.
Since the film is British, it is set around London. Many well known areas are used, such as roads in Croydon, in order to make it realistic and relateable to the audience.

Technical codes:

Many of the camera angles were close ups of the characters faces, as well as the use of tracking. These help to make the film more realistic as and it gives an insight into the characters' emotions, through their facial expressions. There were scenes where the pace slowed and the image blurred to show the audience the scene through the character's eyes or mind.The lighting in the scenes is often quite dark to mirror the serious and intense narrative.

Written codes:

All of the spoken language was London slang, reinforcing the narrative and genre of the film, and also appealing to the primary target audience. 

What I have learned so far

Sectors 

There are 10 media sectors, including film, TV, press, publication, gaming, interactive/online media, radio, advertising, animation and photo imaging. In media, sectors can also be described as media texts or forms.

Genre

Genre is a French word, meaning type. It is a style or category of a specific media product. It’s main purpose it marketing, meaning that it has to attract large and specific audiences. Audiences will appeal to genre as it allows their expectations to be met and are able to find pleasure in predicting. They want a narrative to be instantly appealing, using generic conventions. Generic conventions are often iconography which indicate the genre, and so the audience can automatically understand and relate to them.

Within genre, there are also hybrid genres and crossover genres. A hybrid genre is a genre created from more than one genre, for example, a romantic comedy or an action comedy. A crossover genre is a genre that blends themes are elements from other genres together. Typical crossover genres can typically be romance or action as these aspects can appear in many types of film and TV.

Purpose of music videos

There are many reasons and purposes behind an artist’s music video. A main purpose is promotion. This can be as promoting the artist, the record label, the genre and anything or anyone linked with the music. Another purpose is extension of income. By listeners downloading and buying the songs and their videos, money is able to be made for the artist and their producers, as well as extension of outlets such as the artist’s music channel, their website and direct DVD and CD sales.

Other reasons for artists making music videos is for their audience’s gratification, and even promoting a particular look or lifestyle.

 Styles of music Videos

There are many different styles of music videos. These are popular, live, animated, interpretive, narrative, impressionist, surrealist, pastiche, parody, or commercial. These styles are clearly told apart through their differences in the uses of music video codes and conventions. Some examples of these include colours, dancing and fashion.

  Representation

Representation is how people, ideas and events are presented to us, typically through the use of the media. The media has the power to use a representation of something or someone to challenge or reinforce beliefs, values and attitudes. Stereotypes, which are a fixed widely held but oversimplified idea of a person or thing, are used within representation. (Media is usually represented as a stereotype in order to please or relate to the masses.) Stereotypes exaggerate and simplify and can be negative or positive ideas.

There are 4 ways Richard Dyer suggests representation as:

• ·         A typical representation of reality (use of stereotypes)
• ·         Speaking on behalf of or as a particular position
• ·         A re-representation of reality
• ·         The meaning which media messages represent for audiences

Hall describes 3 approaches to representation:

• ·         Reflective
• ·         Intentional
• ·         Constructionist